Douglas & Ryan

We both love the outdoors, especially when the weather is nice. Ryan enjoys running, biking, swimming and tennis and has competed in several marathons and triathlons. Douglas is into hiking and nature conservation, spending much of his time restoring prairie land and maintaining clear hiking paths throughout the area. When family comes to visit, we enjoy spending time on the lake boating, tubing and water skiing as well as playing lots of cards and board games. We both like to read and play video games together, especially now that Douglas is getting better at Mario Kart.

Ryan loves to help children develop and grow. He has been an elementary school teacher for ten years and for the past two years, Ryan has been a part-time caretaker for a baby girl with special needs due to illness. We have become part of this little girl’s chosen family and look forward to seeing her grow up!

We live in a small town in Central Illinois, outside of a medium-sized city (30 mins away) with many parks, museums, theaters, festivals, stores and restaurants.

Our home is in a close-knit community, about a ½ a mile from Douglas’s mother and where he grew up. There are hiking trails and bike paths throughout the neighborhood and we regularly see folks out and about while we walk the neighborhood with our two dogs. We know most of our neighbors by name and attend lots of community events. Weekly trivia nights are common and there are lots of kid-friendly special events that happen on the town square year-round.

We are fortunate to have family and friends in our area. We live near Douglas’s mother, and many of his extended family live within a few hours drive. We have lots of friends in the area, many that Douglas has known since he was a child. We enjoy having folks over for dinner and have close friends that are our “chosen family.” Your child would have a network of chosen aunts, uncles and cousins for babysitting, play dates and fun visits. We both come from the same size family (4) and each have one older brother. Douglas has 4 nephews ages 10-19, while Ryan has one nephew who is 19.

We have friends and family around the country from our time living in Illinois, Alabama, Washington, DC, and San Francisco, who we still keep in touch with and visit from time to time. We have two older dogs, Toby (13) and Lilly (10), that we rescued as puppies. They enjoy walks in the neighborhood, fetching/chasing and playdates with their dog cousin Beau. Toby is our fearless protector while Lilly is the sweet little squirrel-chaser.